Chapter 21 — The Song Beneath the Stone
The tunnel's end was not stone, but song.
A low, vibrating hum echoed through the passage, not quite music, not quite magic—yet undeniably alive. Velkhan raised a hand, signaling the scouts behind him to halt. His senses were sharp now, attuned to the language of earth and breath. What he felt wasn't hostility, but…watchfulness.
"We're not alone," Gojiro murmured beside him, clawed hand on the hilt of his jagged bone blade.
Velkhan nodded. "Keep weapons lowered. This might be exactly who we're looking for."
They had followed the sound for two days now. Not with blind trust, but curiosity. The old maps marked this place as a collapse zone—unstable, unusable. Yet beneath those ruins, something lived. And anything that could survive in the lower dark deserved, at the very least, a conversation.
The air thickened, the hum becoming a chorus. Then light bloomed—not torchlight, but bioluminescent strands flowing from the ceiling like vines. They revealed a cavern far larger than expected, its walls ribbed like the inside of a beast. Pools of glowing water dotted the floor, and standing beside them were beings unlike any Velkhan had seen.
Tall. Graceful. Amphibious. Their skin shimmered in hues of pearl and moss, and their eyes were wide, translucent—pupils like ripples in a pond. Webbed fingers held polished staves of coral. And despite their size, they made no sound as they approached.
Velkhan stepped forward, alone.
"I am Velkhan, Sovereign of Duskroot," he said evenly. "I seek those forgotten by the surface. I believe you and I have much to discuss."
One of the beings tilted its head, and to his surprise, responded not with words, but with *sound*. A pure tone—somewhere between a whale's call and a glass bell—reverberated in his chest.
A female voice echoed in his mind: **"You carry silence and song within you. You are not like the others."**
"They burn the world above," Velkhan replied, closing his eyes. "I am building something below. A place where your kind won't need to hide anymore."
A pause. Then, a gesture. The beings stepped aside, revealing a deeper sanctum beyond—a sanctuary of light and water.
**The Nai'thari**, he would later learn they called themselves. Children of the drowned forest, driven underground after the Great Flood. Survivors of ancient betrayal. Their society was built on harmony and memory—each song passed through generations like scripture.
They did not trust easily.
But Velkhan did not seek trust. He sought purpose.
Over the following nights, he spoke with their chieftess, Lyelune, not with diplomacy, but with *design*. Water filtration, food-sharing, the trade of fungi for luminous oil, and in exchange—access to their river system, their knowledge of underground currents, and their warriors when needed.
It was not conquest. It was convergence.
And when he left their domain, Lyelune sang a new note—a single harmony that echoed through the tunnels for hours after. A pact not written, but etched in resonance.
In the map chamber of Duskroot, Velkhan marked the Nai'thari sanctuary with ink of deepest blue.
Another piece on the board. Another breath added to the hymn.
The shadow kingdom was growing. And the world above remained blind.
**To be countinue...